


Your name; a song within peonies

by Matloc



Series: Odes of Worship: fics centered around Kuroko or Akashi worship [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Biblical References, Demons, Exiled King!Kuroko, M/M, and there's only one exiled king we all know, bible-inspired verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 04:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5729050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matloc/pseuds/Matloc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seijuurou unravels his relationship with the exiled king.</p><blockquote>
  <p>And so what stews within Seijuurou is nothing righteous, and when blue eyes meet the sea of fire in his own and Tetsuya responds with a sweet curve along his lips, it is nothing resentful either.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	Your name; a song within peonies

**Author's Note:**

> this is pure blasphemy thanks Bible for having some gr8 content to work with. akashi and kuroko are based on two great biblical figures you can probably guess which ones

Quiet, like folded whispers that came before books, at the end of the world there sits a forest. Or the remains of one, as people will tell someday. In its sparse thickets it hides a sole library. A golden mammoth whose stairs swirl endlessly, right into the heavens. They vanish to the human eye before any wayward soul can catch a view past just its fabled two stories. The truth is, like all accounts of foreign lands tend to be, meant for no others but its residents.

There is only one being who dwells on the skyward steps of the library, a veritable human carrying the name of Tetsuya.

The forest surrounding the lone tower in turn boasts a lot many faces. Some human, some bird-like, and some born from nightmares, a boundless diversity teeming under one ubiquitous word: demons. Ubiquitous in that they’ve taken shelter in people’s lips but have yet to weave themselves into their stories. All this comes before ink took to paper, before chisels to stone tablets.

Granted, if there is one eternal being whose name takes hold of the budding grapevine, it must be the one who adorns the floor at Tetsuya’s feet. But so do a hundred others. A hundred demons, legion to an exiled king.

When Tetsuya tilts his head at the demon kissing his hand, the sky shimmers in his hair and falls over his eyes, but there is no more a crown slipping from his head. His robes, humbler than a priest’s wealth, no more than a sterling waterfall spilling over porcelain feet.

“O king,” chants the demon. “Glory be to you.”

Tetsuya graces his subjects with a faint smile, placing a hand on a horned head. A ring glimmers around his finger, the one ornament he chose to bring from home. “And to you.” He says, finishing his greeting with a slow stroke, from the fond hand of a father. The demon hums, and with its tail and wings fluttering in satisfaction, it looks not much different from an animal tamed under Tetsuya’s touch.

 _Tamed._ There was once a time when that word made Seijuurou seethe. He has always ruled with a focused wrath, honing in with his eye of righteousness and smiting those who spurn it. Yet for someone who was abandoned by God Tetsuya has never gone astray. Not in vengeance and not in despair.

And so what stews within Seijuurou is nothing righteous, and when blue eyes meet the sea of fire in his own and Tetsuya responds with a sweet curve along his lips, it is nothing resentful either.

What sits in his heart is a wish, one he has yet to decide for whom. But there is a song of yearning, and he thinks it is Tetsuya who sings.

On sunny days Seijuurou prefers a seat closer to heaven, guarding an upper floor where silence reigns strongest after rain. Pristine scrolls bundled in his lap, hand holding up one overflowing river of text for him to read, perhaps he guards in a posture overlapping with relaxing, and in a mood imbricating waiting with the occasional glance upstairs. Over the stairs, at vast blues that remind him indubitably of Tetsuya, and with him the inevitability of skies sewing shut to only let through tears. When they fall, Tetsuya hides himself in a room much like this, perches upon a windowsill, and mourns along with greyscale heavens.

It is fortunate that averting his eyes from mourning comes far easier to Seijuurou than swimming through shallow ponds. To a proud race of humans, this alone is much kinder than ignoring prayers. In this regard, Tetsuya bares his humanity to the bone. Each piece counting down the years when he too will lose his grace and succumb to a mortal’s fate, as belated as it may come.

There are certain things Seijuurou waits for, all meticulously inscribed in divine text, but he comes to realize Tetsuya’s end isn’t one of them.

It’s as blatant as the glare of the sun, a golden oath of diurnal perpetuities, when Seijuurou stops Tetsuya at the door with a question, “Why did you ask for wisdom?” and when Tetsuya states his answer like the time of day,

“Because without it, I would have thought you a prison guard and myself a prisoner.”

It becomes so easy now that realization falls upon him, like a deafening fog has lifted, guiding his feet to where Tetsuya stands. “Then what do you presume us to be?” he whispers, matching the other’s breath, the air trapped between their bodies intermingling with unspoken blessings. Things have always gone unspoken between them, and for once Seijuurou mulls on the thought of taking that for granted. Leaving it unchecked until now where they’re creeping up in his chest like vines sprouting in sin, ready to rip through stone and leave his heart—if he has one, if the pain in his chest is something more than God’s punishment—to ruins.

Tetsuya lifts his gaze, and it’s lined with a truth he doesn’t show others. Always, _always_ smiling at Seijuurou so differently from the fondness he shows others. It is so clear like the sky in his eyes, the guilt, the defeat; Tetsuya’s eyes are a gift of wisdom, never failing to reflect what others feel.

When Tetsuya stares out a window streaked with heaven’s tears, whose name receives the grace of his tongue, trapped in his breath, kept away from the world?

Seijuurou can feel the warmth of Tetsuya’s hand as it cups his cheek, as it melts the marble of his skin, and all the words left unsaid can now be traced like stitches over a wound. He grabs at Seijuurou’s garbs, pulls him close enough for a whisper to drain out every other sound in the world.

“We are both His children, who love something greater than our Father.”

* * *

 

 

Seijuurou is born with a muted wish in his heart, and when he meets Tetsuya, he hears it sing for the first time.

When he counts his sins on Tetsuya’s skin, he finally understands.

It sings for _him_ ,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

to fall from grace.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> spoiler: akashi’s not a demon


End file.
